Chapter 13
by laurenbooks125
Summary: Maybe there was more to the story than you may have read... What happens after Johnny and Dally die? How does Ponyboy deal with it?


I slip my black jacket over my fancy shirt and tie. Darry walks in in a fancy shirt like mine, and nice ironed pants, and brings in some beat up black shoes for me to wear.

He says, "Here you are, Dad's old dress shoes. They aren't in the best shape, but they'll do." He pauses for a moment and stares at the shoes then picks up his head, and looks at me. "Are you ready for today?"

I look at him with teary eyes, ready to break down, but I just shake my head.

"It's going to be alright, kid. Everything is gonna be fine." He then comes over to hug me, but I push him away.

"Can I be left alone?" I say. Darry nods then leaves the room. _I'm not ready for this. I'm not going to be able to handle this._ I'm not going to be able to see Johnny and Dally, sitting in those caskets. They're just kids. They were alive just a week ago. It's not right.

I still have about fifteen minutes until we have to leave for the funeral, but I'm already dressed and ready and just want to get this over with.

Soda just got out of the shower and he walks into my room with just his pants on. "Are you gonna be alright today?"

I pick up my head sharply. "Why does everyone keep asking me that?! I'm not going to be okay, and everybody knows it!" At this point I'm broken down crying. Soda rushes over to me and hugs me while we sit on the bed. My head is on his damp shoulder and I cry very hard.

He puts his arm around my head and comforts me. "It's going to be alright. They're in a better place, you don't gotta worry 'bout it."

I start crying harder at this point. "No, it's not gonna be fine. They're my best buds…I need them here."

Soda replies, "We all do. We understand." We both sit there for a moment just thinking. Soda then breaks our thought by saying, "We're gonna get going soon, so put your shoes on and head downstairs."

"Alright." I say as I wipe my tears with a tissue.

The funeral house is very old and shabby. It looks a lot like the church down in Windrixville that Johnny and I went to after we killed Bob. Darry walks up to the door of the building and opens it up slowly. A smell of candles and flowers comes out of the door. Darry then just stares at all of us, waiting for someone to walk in. Steve then walks up slowly to the door and enters. Two-Bit then follows him, then Soda, then me, then Darry. Johnny or Dally's parents didn't show up. I wasn't surprised because they both always told how their parents hated and didn't care about them. It was just the five of us.

On the right of us, there is a door with a man standing in front of it in a nice suit.

He then asks us, "Are you here for the funeral of Johnny Cade and Dallas Winston?" We all nod. The man says, "They are in here. I'm sorry for the loss."

The man opens the door and we all slowly creep in in a big group. The room is kind of small, but it is holding a lot of chairs. The walls are just white, it's kind of boring. Then I turn my head around and see them. The big, black caskets, side by side, holding the bodies of Johnny and Dally. I'm the first one to walk over to them and break down crying. My heart feels like its sinking and I just want to be in a casket too. Soda runs over to me and hugs me. I cry very loud and hard into his shoulder for everyone to hear. Then I hear everyone else's footsteps, and I can faintly see everyone around me. I pick my head up out of Soda's shoulder and just stare at Johnny and Dally.

You know how people say that people look like they're sleeping when they are dead? Well, Johnny didn't. He just looked dead. But, Dally looked like he was sleeping, with that same annoyed look he always has. I feel bad for both of them. They didn't have good lives. They both had parents that hated them. Even though they had us, they weren't that happy. Which just makes me cry more. There wasn't that many flowers there either. A bouquet from all of us to each of them, and then a small bouquet in front of Johnny's casket. I walk over to it and read it. It reads,

"Johnny,

I'm sorry for the fighting me and your father did all the time. We weren't there when you needed us, and I'm sorry. I'm devastated you are gone and we feel so guilty. We feel so bad. I'm sorry, Johnny. I love you. And I'm sorry I never got to say that until now.

-Mom and Dad."

"Oh my gosh." I pick the card off the flowers and walk over to Darry as he is over at Dally's casket. I tap his shoulder and say through my tears, "Darry. Johnny's parents wrote a really nice letter."

"Let me see." Darry takes the little paper out of my hands. His eyes scan the paper and he eventually starts to tear. He looks up at me and says, "Wow, his parents really did write a nice letter."

"Really?" Two-Bit jumps in.

I nod.

As we all cry over the caskets and talk about the letter Johnny's parents wrote. We stay there all day and mourn. After a while, a man walks into the room and interrupts us by saying, "Are we ready to take the bodies to the cemetery?" Nobody talks because no one knows what to say.

So Darry steps in and says, "Sure…"

When we get home I run up to my room and sit on my bed. I don't cry anymore. I just think about Johnny and Dally.

They were just alive a week ago. I can't believe this can happen so quickly. I just don't get it. How could the police kill a kid like that? And why would God decide that that was Johnny's fate, to die of a fire? I just don't get it. But, I didn't get it either when it happened to my parents. I just had to face it, which is what I'll do now. I wish I had something of Dally's, like I have the letter that Johnny wrote, and "Gone with the Wind." As I think of this, I walk over to my desk and open the drawer on the left and pull out a folded up piece of paper.

It's the letter Johnny wrote me.

I walk over to my bed and lay down, still in my suit, and read the letter. "_Johnny is just so proud. So gallant._ _I wish he was still here to tell him that._

While I'm in the middle of the letter, my eyes keep fluttering shut. I try to keep them open as I finish the letter, but I can't. I slowly drift off to sleep as I read the last line, "Your buddy, Johnny."

When I awake, I see that I'm not in my suit anymore, I'm in my underwear. I guess Soda must have taken my suit off for me when he went to bed.

The letter wasn't in my hands anymore.

I jump out of bed in a panic and look everywhere in the room. I check under the bed, on the windowsill, under the comforter, sheets, and mattress. Then I look on my desk and on the chair, under the chair. Then I finally check where it originally was: the drawer on the left, and it isn't there. I checked everywhere! What will I do? I run downstairs over to Soda at the kitchen table. I ask him, "What did you do with the paper that was in my hands when I fell asleep?"

"Oh, I threw that away."

That was when heart finally exploded. I couldn't take all this misery. The last thing of Johnny was gone.

I run up to Soda and tackle him, making his chair fall backwards, and his head hit the wall. "WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU DO THAT?!"

"It was just a piece of paper!" Soda yells back at me with confusion.

Darry comes running in yelling, "Hey! Pony, what the heck are you doing?" He then picks me up off of Soda, but I fight back. Soda gets up off the floor holding the back of his head in pain. Soda looks at his hand, and there is blood.

"What did Soda do to you?" Darry asks me.

"HE THREW AWAY THE LETTER!" I yell back.

Soda says, "What letter?"

I breathe heavy for a second to catch my breath then I say, "Johnny…"

Soda stares at me with guilt and says, "Pony…I'm sorry." He tries to walk over and hug me with open arms, but I back away. Sods puts his arms down then says, "Hey, maybe it's still there. I threw it in the waste basket in our room. You should go look."

"Okay." I say, "Sorry. I kind of overreacted."

Soda replies, "Its fine, I get it."

I leave the kitchen and walk up the stairs and go into my room. I go over to the waste basket next to the bed and rummage through it. I go through used tissues, candy wrappers, and math homework. I still couldn't find it. But then get to the bottom and I see a folded up piece of paper. My heart starts beating. I'm just hoping it's the letter from Johnny. I pick it up and slowly open it. I read the first line and I'm thankful to see the words, "Dear Ponyboy," I sigh loudly with relief.

I then run back downstairs with the letter still in my hands. I run over to over Soda sitting on the couch with an ice pack up to his head. "I found it."

"That's good." he says.

"I'm sorry," I say, "I really overreacted about this whole situation. I shouldn't have tackled you."

Soda nods and kind of smiles.

"Are you okay?" I ask him.

"I don't know, Pony. There was blood, but I think I'll be fine. I just gotta rest." At the end of that, I hear police sirens outside. I look out the window and see what was happening. I see a police car chasing after a boy on the streets, with a big bag in his hands, that didn't look any older than Soda.

Darry walks in and I say, "Darry, did you see that?"

"See what?" Darry replies.

"The fuzz chasing that kid outside…I think it was Steve."

Soda picks his head up sharply and yells, "What?!"

I point out the window and say, "Look," Darry and Soda both look out the window. "Doesn't that look like Steve?"

Soda nods slowly with big eyes. "Looks like he robbed a bank, he's got a big bag, it has to be filled with money."

"You're right." Darry says. Steve stops running for a few seconds to catch his breath, and the car pulls up alongside of him. Steve drops the bag and puts his hands up as the cops come out of the car. "Look!" I say, "They caught him."

Soda says, "Well, we gotta get to that police station and talk to him!" Darry and I just stare at him. This was all happening too fast.

"Should we?" I say to Darry.

He shrugs and says, "Why not."

When we get to the police station, we all walk up to the front desk and Soda asks, "Are we able to speak Steve Randle?"

The lady at the front desk says, "I'll bring him into a booth for you. Please sit down and I will tell you when he is ready."

"Okay, thank you." Soda says.

"What does she mean by a booth?" I ask.

"You know those booths where the prisoner is on the inside with a phone and you're on the outside with a phone and you talk to each other."

I reply, "Oh yeah. Right."

"Hey guys. What are you doing here?" Steve says into the phone in the booth.

"What are YOU doing here, Steve?" Soda says, shocked.

Steve shrugs and says, "I kind of robbed a bank."

"Why did you do that?" Darry says.

Steve replies, "I was gonna go buy a bunch of beer."

Soda has a very confused look on his face. "You're only seventeen! You can't buy alcohol."

"I was just gonna rob that store too!" Steve yells back.

Darry grabs the phone from Soda, then he yells into the phone when he says, "Why would you do all this robbing?!"

There is a moment of silence before Steve says, "It helps relieve stress."

Soda says, "Stress from what?"

As soon as Steve said he had to relieve stress, I knew what was stressful to Steve, and to all of us. There is a moment of silence before I jump into everyone's thoughts and say, "It's Johnny and Dally. That's what's stressing him out. Isn't that right, Steve?"

Soda and Darry look at me, then back over to Steve.

"Is that true?" Soda says to Steve through the phone.

Steve bites his lip, not knowing what to say, but then he nods.

"Why didn't you come and talk to us before you did something like this?" Darry says.

Steve just shrugs and stares at the floor.

Soda sighs then says, "So how long are you in here?"

Steve picks up his head while he says, "I don't know yet, we figure that out tomorrow. The fuzz said it would be at least two years."

Soda rolls his eyes.

"Hey, man, I'm sorry. I didn't think you would care this much." Steve says to Soda.

He then explodes at this remark when he says, "Of course I care! You're my best friend! I didn't know how far you were gonna keep running when the fuzz were chasing you. I thought they were gonna shoot you down like…like Dally."

"That wasn't going to happen. I was gonna stop eventually." Steve says.

Soda opens his mouth to say something, but stops himself. So I jump in and say, "Well that's good. So…" I look up at Soda and Darry because I don't know what to say. But Darry helps and says, "We'll…see you later?"

Steve nods and says, "Yeah. See you guys."

Soda puts down the phone. Then we all get up and leave the booth.

We get in the pick-up out in the parking lot and drive home. When we walked into the house, we see Two-Bit sitting on the floor in front of the TV with chocolate cake watching Mickey Mouse.

"Hey, Two-Bit!" I say.

Soda says, "What are you doing here?"

Two-Bit shrugs and says, "I just needed to get out."

"Okay." Darry says, and walks into the kitchen, Soda follows him. Instead of following Soda and Darry into the kitchen, I sit down next to Two-Bit on the floor and watch Mickey.

We sit watching Mickey for a minute before I say, "So how are you doing about everything?" Two-Bit looks at me and says, "About what?"

"You know," I say, "about…Johnny…and Dally."

Two-Bit sighs and sets down his chocolate cake on the floor next to him. He then says, "Um…yeah, I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" I say.

He nods, but I can see the tears in his eyes. Then we sit in silence for a minute with our heads down before Two-Bit says, "So what were you guys doing out?"

I jerk my head up saying, "Oh, we were at the police station."

Two-Bit has a very confused look on his face while he says, "What happened?"

"Oh," I say, "Steve robbed a bank."

"Really?" Two-Bit says, "Oh okay."

We both sit there eating chocolate cake and watching Mickey.

Then Two-Bit says, "I should get going." He then coughs very loudly.

"Hey, are you okay?" I say, worried.

He coughs again, louder, and then says, "Yeah. I think I'm coming down with a little cold. I'll be fine."

"Okay, see you." I reply. Two-Bit nods and smiles then leaves the house, coughing.

The next morning I hear Darry yelling in my face shaking me awake. "Pony, wake up! C'mon, Pony!" He yells over and over. Then I finally wake up and he yells, "C'mon, Ponyboy, we gotta go!"

"What?" I say feeling groggy. "What's going on?" Darry gets out of my face and I sit up.

Then he says, "We gotta get to the hospital!" I jump out of bed, looking very confused.

"Two-Bit is in the hospital. We gotta go, c'mon!" Darry says as he runs back downstairs.

I throw my clothes on in a panic and run downstairs. _What could have possibly happened to make him so sick? _

I am in the living room when Soda comes downstairs and says, "Hey, Pony, do you know what happened to Two-Bit?"

I shake my head. Soda nods then walks into the kitchen. As I'm just standing there, staring off into space, I see Darry running around looking for his car keys, but I can see they are hanging out of his back pocket.

Darry starts cursing as he keeps running around, then I say, "Hey, Darry!" Darry turns his body around fast and stares at me. "The keys are in your back pocket."

Darry feels around to his back pocket and grabs the keys. "Oh. Thanks, Ponyboy. Alright. Let's go." He then turns his head towards the kitchen and yells, "C'mon, Soda! We gotta go now!" Soda comes running out of the kitchen and runs out then door. Darry and I follow him out to the pick-up and drive to the hospital.

The nurse guiding us down to the room where Two-Bit was staying, had a very annoyed look on her face like she didn't want to be there. I was going to ask her if she was okay, but I decided not to. I just wanted to see how Two-Bit. "He's in there." The nurse says while pointing to a door in the left.

Darry nods and says, "Thank you." The nurse nods back, opens the door, then leaves. Darry walks in first, then Soda, then me. As soon as we walk in, all we hear is coughing. Two-Bit looks terrible.

"Hey, guys." He tries to say between coughs.

"Man, what happened to you?" Soda says with a worried look on his face.

Two-Bit finally stops coughing and then says, "Well, I was feeling pretty bad for the past couple days. I kept puking all over my house and I would not stop coughing. I was taking medicine and pills and stuff, but it just wasn't working." He stops a few seconds to cough then continues. "Then I started getting worse. I had to stay in bed 24-seven. I had a bucket next to my bed because I kept puking. And the coughing was intense. So I thought, 'This is getting out of control. I should go to the hospital.' So I took all the effort I had, got out of bed and called an ambulance. They came and took me here." He shrugs, then starts coughing really badly again.

"Did they tell you what type of sickness you have?" Darry asks him.

Two-Bit shrugs again and says, "Yeah, they did. But, it was a big word, so I had no idea what they were saying."

I nod. Then I start looking around the hospital room and see a small table with something sitting on it. I walk over to it, and as I get closer I realize it's a clipboard. I pick it up and it says, "Patient: Keith Matthews." It is weird seeing "Keith" written down as his name when we call him Two-Bit all the time. I look down the page and read pointless stuff like his height, weight, age and all that junk before I get down to where it says his condition. It reads, "Reason for visit: Severe Pneumonia." I pick my head up and walk over to the side of the bed. Soda and Darry are now sitting in chairs just staring at the floor.

"Two-Bit," I say, "You have pneumonia."

Two-Bit nods then instantly looks confused. "What is that?" he asks me.

"It's a sickness where you cough and puke a lot. Which is what you've been doing."

"Oh." Two-Bit says, then starts coughing again.

"You should be fine." I say. I regret saying that after I look at the bottom of the paper and it says, "In the state he is in now, he has an estimated two months to live."

_Oh my gosh._ I don't know what to do at this point. I just stare at the sentence. "In the state he is in now, he has an estimated two months to live."

I don't know what to do, so I drop the clipboard on the floor and it makes a loud _SLAM! _Darry, Soda and Two-Bit all stare at me. I stare at them quickly before I run out of the room. "Pony! Ponyboy!" Soda calls after me as I run down the hall.

But I don't stop running. I eventually run down the entire hallway and out of the hospital. I stop right outside of the entrance, panting like a dog from all that running. I don't know whether to run home or just sit there waiting for Darry and Soda to come out. I could not believe this was happening. Two-Bit is gonna die within two months.

Before I have time to think any more about Darry and Soda come crashing through the doors. "Pony," Soda yells, "What was that about?"

I sigh and say, "Um…it was nothing. Can we just go?" They both stare at me, then they look at each other.

Darry nods and says, "Yeah. Let's go."

I just stare at the floor in my room thinking, _Why?_ Why did Johnny have to die? Why did Dally have to die? Why did Steve have to go to jail? Why did Two-But have to get sick? Just why? WHY? I don't know. I can't handle this. Soda keeps telling me it's all going to work out, but it won't. But…maybe it will? "NO!' I think, "It just won't get better! My life will never be better! I can't take this anymore!" At this thought I start crying my eyes out. I cry for a while very loudly. Soda comes in and asks me, "Ponyboy, what's up with you? What happened at the hospital?" I pick my head up and say through my tears, "The paper at the hospital said that Two-Bit has about two months to live." Soda's eyes get very big and he tears up. "Oh, Ponyboy. You should have said something to us." "I couldn't. It was too hard." I reply.

Soda walks over to me while he says, "Ponyboy, it's going to be fine." He tries to hug me, but I push him back and he hits the wall. "IT'S NOT GOING TO BE FINE! YOU SAY THAT EVERYDAY AND YOU'RE NEVER RIGHT! IT'S NEVER GOING TO GET BETTER, SODAPOP! IT WON'T, SO JUST DEAL WITH IT!" Soda stares at me and he eventually just says, "Fine." He then leaves and goes downstairs. Once he is downstairs I run down the hall into Darry's room and search through all his drawers. "Where does he keep that pistol?" I whisper. When I finally get to the bottom drawer of his dresser I look under all his pants and see the pistol. I grab it and run back to my room. Before I do this, I go over to the left drawer of my desk and grab the letter Johnny wrote me. I hold it in my left hand and I have the pistol. I slowly bring the pistol up to the side of my head.

I look down at the letter, then bring my head up. I look around my room one last time. Then I pull the trigger. _**BANG!**_ I feel a sharp feeling, but then it quickly fades. The pistol drops out of my hands and I fall to the floor. I hear yelling coming up the stairs but my hearing and vision are fading. It starts to get very bright. But, then all I see is darkness.

**The End.**


End file.
